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Discussion on DSNY staffing levels and overtime spending
0:27:34
ยท
3 min
Council Member Abreu inquires about DSNY's current staffing levels compared to budgeted positions and its impact on overtime spending. DSNY officials explain the reasons for overtime despite being over-staffed, including snow events and seasonal fluctuations in staff availability.
- DSNY is operating 409 uniform positions over budgeted levels
- Snow events and seasonal staff availability contribute to overtime spending
- Overall overtime spending is down compared to recent years, except for the previous exceptionally low year
Shaun Abreu
0:27:34
I wanna begin with head count and overtime.
0:27:38
The recent mayoral directive places strict controls on overtime spending across agencies including DSNY requiring detailed reduction plans, monthly reporting, and oversight from OMB.
0:27:52
With sanitation services being essential to public health and cleanliness, it is critical to understand how these restrictions will impact DSNY's workforce, service levels, overall efficiencies.
0:28:03
What is DSNY's current staffing level compared to the number of positions budgeted and how does this affect reliance on overtime?
0:28:12
Okay.
Javier Lojan
0:28:19
So our for FY 2025, our budgeted headcount for uniformed is 7,900 and 50 5 and our actual for year to date is 8,221.
0:28:33
The headcount for civilian personnel for f y twenty five is 1,632 and the actual was 1,657.
Shaun Abreu
0:28:43
DSNY is operating 409 uniform positions over budgeted levels but is still spending overspending on overtime.
0:28:52
Can you make sense of that please?
Joseph Antonelli
0:29:07
Okay.
0:29:08
So the reason why we spend on overtime for uniform staff, so there's two things that drive it.
0:29:14
One, snow events which is a significant amount.
0:29:18
We've spent in excess of $30,000,000 this year just in snow overtime.
0:29:23
But secondarily, the big issue is that our staffing levels throughout the year fluctuate based on staff availability.
0:29:30
So in the winter months like now, vacations are lower than they are in the summer months.
0:29:36
So right now we may be running surplus sanitation workers on a daily basis and kind of only have this event driven overtime.
0:29:43
We're in the warmer months because that's when more people are on vacation and kind of the allotments are maxed out.
0:29:48
On those given days we may be running overtime just to fill our minimum staffing that we need for the day.
0:29:55
But on the whole we're staying generally within what our staffing levels allow for.
Shaun Abreu
0:30:00
You know my understanding is that when you have more uniform positions than your budget you know, you would expect that there would be less overtime.
0:30:09
Do you expect this trend to continue where you're hiring above your budgeted amount which should theoretically reduce overtime?
0:30:17
Do you think that that trend will continue?
Joseph Antonelli
0:30:20
Yeah I mean I would say in a historical context our overtime is down.
0:30:25
Last year was an exceptionally low year and the reason for that is that we so our hiring we do it all at the beginning of the fiscal year.
0:30:35
Because the peg the main peg program took place in November, there were a lot of cuts to programs that were taken after we had already done our hiring for the year.
0:30:43
So what what that actually allowed for was significant surpluses in sanitation workers throughout the rest of the year which led to an exceptionally low overtime level.
0:30:54
But if you look at the more recent historicals like f y twenty three, f y '20 '2, we're still down significantly from those years.